South Africa in 1995

South Africa, a member of the Commonwealth, occupies the southern tip of Africa, with the Atlantic Ocean to the west and the Indian Ocean to the east. Area: 1,219,080 sq km (470,689 sq mi). Pop. (1995 est.): 41,465,000. Executive cap., Pretoria; judicial cap., Bloemfontein; legislative cap., Cape Town. Monetary unit: South African rand, with (Oct. 6, 1995) a free rate of R 3.66 to U.S. $1 (R 5.79 = £1 sterling); the dual exchange rate system introduced in 1979 was abolished on March 13, 1995. State president in 1995, Nelson Mandela.

Affairs

Opening Parliament in February 1995, Pres. Nelson Mandela threatened battle against the "forces of anarchy and chaos." He called for the country to become "investor-friendly," warning that freedom did not mean license and that the government did not have the means to meet the demands on it. People must rid themselves, he said, of the "culture of entitlement." A campaign was instituted to try to break the boycott of rent and service payments, estimated to involve 80% of black township residents. Mandela also continued his policy of racial reconciliation, holding a lunch for the wives of former presidents and prime ministers together with those of liberation movement leaders and taking tea with Betsie Verwoerd, widow of a leading architect of apartheid, Hendrik Verwoerd. Mandela expressed his sympathy for the Freedom Front’s idea of an Afrikaner volkstaat because "compromise is something very important" in nation building.

Implementation of the government’s reconstruction and development program proceeded slowly, owing to limited financial resources, bureaucratic inertia, and delayed transference of powers to provincial and local governments. Plans were, however, proposed for a publicly funded and universally accessible primary health care system, and a program of state subsidies for housing for the poor was initiated. A new framework for national education was legislated. In October it was reported that more than 300 rural water projects, benefiting 3.5 million people, and improvements of more than 600 municipal services were completed or would be within the next 18 months.

The year was punctuated by tensions between the parties constituting the government of national unity, particularly as local elections approached in November. The issues revolved particularly around the relative powers of central government and provinces. The National Party (NP) became torn by conflict over how to carve an independent profile as a party of opposition to the dominant African National Congress (ANC) while continuing to serve in the government, conflict that was resolved only by the authority of its leader, Deputy Pres. F.W. de Klerk.

In January, to the anger of the NP, the ANC denied the validity of the indemnity granted just before the April 1994 election by the NP government in secret to 3,500 policemen and two former Cabinet ministers. It said that their cases had to be considered by the Truth and Conciliation Commission, which was established during the year. In the same month, in an atmosphere of wildcat strikes by black police and accusations of white racism in the police, police chief Johan van der Merwe resigned and was replaced by George Fivaz, who pledged himself to reform in the police force, including the demilitarization of ranks. Concern about the nation’s rising crime rate mounted during the year, and the government imposed tougher bail conditions on criminals. The newly established Constitutional Court controversially abolished the death penalty on June 6.

The trial of former security policeman Col. Eugene de Kock on 121 charges of murder, kidnapping, fraud, and theft produced further evidence of past police involvement in assassinations and the fomenting of political violence. Prominent Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) leaders were alleged to have been in the pay of the security police. A secret report of the Goldstone Commission to President de Klerk in 1994 was published that alleged the security police had been "involved for many years in the most serious criminal conduct including murder, fraud, blackmail, and a huge operation of dishonest political disinformation." Prominent former policemen criticized the report for a lack of facts.

In pursuit of the goal of maximum autonomy for the KwaZulu/Natal province, Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, IFP leader and home affairs minister, was elected chairman of the KwaZulu/Natal House of Traditional Leaders in January against the opposition of King Goodwill Zwelithini, who--to the consternation of other traditional leaders in KwaZulu/Natal--had distanced himself from the IFP. Both the ANC and King Goodwill declared this House unconstitutionally established. The IFP walked out of Parliament in February, alleging that the ANC had broken its 1994 pledge to international mediation regarding the form of the South African state and restoration of the Zulu kingdom. The ANC claimed that these were matters for decision by the Constitutional Assembly (both houses of Parliament meeting to draw up a final constitution). The IFP returned to Parliament but withdrew in April from participation in the Constitutional Assembly and later from an intergovernmental forum of regional premiers. Buthelezi accused the ANC of attempting to establish a "one-party hegemony" in the country; the ANC in response accused the IFP of advocating secession of KwaZulu/Natal.

In response to calls by Buthelezi for the Zulu people to "rise and resist" central government, President Mandela in May threatened to cut government funds to KwaZulu/Natal and stepped up the army and police presence in the province. Mandela claimed Buthelezi was fomenting violence, while Buthelezi claimed he was calling for peaceful mass resistance. In June Mandela admitted that in March 1994 he had given guards at the ANC headquarters in Johannesburg "shoot to kill" orders in self-defense against an IFP demonstration, which had resulted in deaths. To the anger of the IFP, Parliament passed legislation authorizing payment of the salaries of traditional leaders by the central government rather than the provinces. In the KwaZulu/Natal legislature, the IFP tried to secure the passage of a provincial constitution described as "highly confederal," including provision for an army and sovereignty over territorial waters, but could not secure the necessary two-thirds majority for this. There was evidence of tension between hard-liners and moderates in the IFP, the latter favouring greater cooperation with the ANC in government.

In the months prior to the April 1994 election, death tolls of 300 persons a month due to political violence were being recorded in Natal. They declined in the months following the election to a low of 57 in March 1995 but began to increase again thereafter, to about 70 a month. There were nearly 80 deaths in one week in July and 55 in one week in August. Accusations were made by the ANC of a "culture of immunity" in KwaZulu/Natal and of failure to prosecute perpetrators of violence. In June a special investigative unit secured the arrest of the IFP’s deputy secretary-general, Zakhele Khumalo, and two police officers on 13 counts of murder committed in 1987.

Local elections held on November 1, except in certain parts of the Western Cape and Natal, resulted in substantial gains for the ANC. In the NP-governed Western Cape, the elections were delayed because of a dispute with the government over whether the populous African township Khayelitsha should be included in the Tygerberg area or with central Cape Town. The controversy was taken to the Constitutional Court, where it escalated into a dispute over the relative powers of central and provincial governments. A draft constitution presented by Cyril Ramaphosa, the chairman of the Constitutional Assembly, on November 22 would give the regional governments more power in the South African federal structure through a new upper chamber of Parliament.

A Labour Relations Act guaranteeing the right to strike was passed. It contained the innovative idea of workplace forums as arenas of management-worker cooperation. The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), the National Congress of Trade Unions, and the Federation of South African Labour Unions engaged in demonstrations and a half-day general strike in June to secure more favourable terms for workers in the act. The final version of the act was described by COSATU’s general secretary, Sam Shilowa, as a "quantum leap for workers." Workdays lost in industrial strikes in 1995 were the lowest in many years. There were, however, wildcat strikes by nurses and a strike in four provinces by municipal workers demanding higher pay.

Winnie Mandela, the estranged wife of President Mandela, criticized the ANC for overindulgence in racial reconciliation at the expense of the masses. In February, 11 leaders of the ANC Women’s League resigned in protest against her conduct as president of the League. In March, while Mandela was absent in West Africa, her home was raided by police looking for evidence of financial misdealing. She was dismissed on March 27 as deputy minister of arts, culture, science, and technology. Though the dismissal was reversed in court on a technicality, she resigned on April 17. During the year President Mandela instituted divorce proceedings against her.

The Rev. Allan Boesak, former leader of the Western Cape ANC and ambassador-designate to the United Nations in Geneva, was accused by donors to DanChurch Aid of unlawfully enriching himself at the expense of the Foundation for Peace and Justice, which he headed. He resigned his appointment as ambassador in February. Amid similar cases of alleged corruption, the ANC drew up a code of financial conduct for its parliamentarians, requiring them to reveal their own and their families’ business interests.

At a conference in April, the South African Communist Party (SACP) reported 50,000 members, 50 of them serving as ANC members of Parliament or government ministers and three as provincial premiers of the nine provinces. Two prominent SACP leaders, Joe Slovo and Harry Gwala, died during the year. (See OBITUARIES.)

In one of the country’s worst-ever mining disasters, more than 100 miners died at Vaal Reefs gold mine in May when a runaway underground locomotive fell on top of an elevator carrying them down a shaft. The Rugby Union World Cup was staged in the country in May and June and was won by the South African team, the Springboks.

The Economy

The economic upswing that began in May 1993 continued, strongly in the second half of 1994 and more weakly in the first half of 1995. Gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 2.3% in 1994--the first year since 1988 that it had exceeded population growth--and by 1.5% in the first quarter of 1995 and 0.8% in the second, pulled down by poor performances in agriculture and mining. GDP growth for 1995 was predicted at 2.8-3%. The upswing was fueled by gross domestic fixed investment (GDFI), which grew by 7% in 1994 (the first year of growth since 1989) and by 5% in the first quarter and 8% in the second quarter of 1995. GDFI was expected to grow by more than 10% in 1995 overall. In 1994 this represented a few big investments by private companies, but in 1995 it was becoming more widely distributed.

Official estimates put unemployment at about 4.7 million, one-third of the economically active population. Between 1990 and 1994 formal-sector employment shrank by 8%. Despite the upswing, it declined by 0.5% in 1994 to 7,410,000 jobs, but growth was anticipated in 1995.

The upswing continued to stimulate imports of capital goods. A surplus on the current account of the balance of payments of R 500 million in the first half of 1994 was transformed into a deficit of R 2.1 billion for the year overall. During the first half of 1995, the deficit was R 5.6 billion, which led to estimates of an annualized deficit of R 8 billion-R 10 billion. Net capital inflows of R 8.8 billion in the second half of 1994 (compared with an outflow of R 3.8 billion in the first half) and of R 9.8 billion in the first half of 1995 allowed this deficit to be sustainable. At the end of June, gross foreign exchange reserves were R 15.2 billion, about six weeks of exports. The governor of the reserve bank expressed concern that much of the capital inflow was short-term and warned that the upswing was exposing the insufficiency of domestic savings and the nation’s low labour productivity.

The dual rand (financial and commercial), an exchange control measure, was abolished in March without substantially affecting the value of the currency. In June a series of measures liberalizing trade were introduced, with phased major reductions in tariff protection barriers and the scrapping of the local content requirements in the automobile industry.

The first budget wholly drawn up by the government of national unity allocated 46.7% of spending to social services (compared with 44% in 1994-95). Education received 26%, the largest amount, and the allocation for housing and urban upgrading, at 2.7%, was more than doubled from 1994-95. Interest payments on debt accounted for 18.6% of spending, the second largest amount. Military spending was cut by 11.7% to R 9.8 billion, which represented a continuing decline since 1989. A decision on whether to purchase four new corvettes for the navy was postponed by the Cabinet. The budget’s deficit before borrowing was projected at 5.8% of GDP, compared with 6.4% in 1994-95.

Consumer price inflation reached a low of 7.1% in April 1994, averaged 9% for 1994 as a whole (the lowest since 1972), increased to 11% by June 1995, and fell to 6.4% in September, the lowest rate in 23 years. The money supply increased at rates deemed excessive by the reserve bank, which increased its interest charges to other banks from 13% in September 1994 to 15% at the end of June 1995.

Foreign Affairs

South Africa had planned during the year to place more emphasis on "south-south" relations: with countries in southern Africa and Asia. Criticism, however, emerged concerning the lacklustre qualities of Foreign Affairs Minister Alfred Nzo and the failure to provide the moral leadership expected of the Mandela presidency and to replace staff of the former government. This criticism focused particularly on the failure to criticize the human rights records of such governments as Indonesia, Nigeria, Kenya, and The Sudan and on the decision to store oil for the Iranian government.

Despite urging by the Organization of African Unity to commit its army to peacekeeping forces in Africa, the new government insisted that its priorities were domestic. In Angola it offered to provide demolition specialists to detect mines laid in that nation’s long civil war. South Africa was criticized for its support for the "Big Five" nuclear powers at the UN nuclear nonproliferation summit in April but responded that its package of proposals for strengthening the operation of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty had been accepted by the conference.

The Cameron Commission investigated the clandestine sales of weapons to other nations by the government-owned Armscor, which had occurred under the former government. It recommended that arms sales be based on the country’s "commitment to democracy, human rights, and international peace and security," and a list of countries to which arms sales were permissible was prepared. Control over such sales was transferred from Armscor to a Cabinet committee. Armscor obtained contracts to supply arms to UN forces in Rwanda and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The European Union on March 29 agreed to reduce trade tariffs on South African goods during the next 10 years. South Africa would also receive ECU 500 million in aid over the next four years. Martin Legassick

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